1. “The noblest pleasure”
“The noblest pleasure”?: on gaining understanding from qualitative research in library/information science  
David Bawden
Department of Library and Information Science
City University London

2. Enthusiasts for a certain position

3. To measure is to know.
If you can not measure it
you can not improve it
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

4. Francis Cole and Nellie Eales
Statistical analysis of literature of comparative anatomy, Science Progress, 1917, 11,
Francis Cole Museum of Zoology, Reading University

5. So quantitative studies have a long history,
Is qualitative second rate? What is its value?

6. thick description. In a particular context
thick description .. In a particular context .. [to] allow for deeper understanding
Alison Pickard
Focus on this ideas of understanding. And look first to the discipline of chemistry

9. Theoretical explanations in [organic chemistry] are often produced after the fact to rationalise results, and it is often not possible to make numerical predictions about the behaviour of novel reactions. Those explanations that are produced are frequently qualitative. William Goodwin
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

10. Organic chemists have made a trade-off: they have de-emphasised quantitative prediction and unambiguous explanation for something much more useful, given their pragmatic goals: a theory that helps them make plausible, but often qualitative or relative, assessments of chemical behaviour William Goodwin

11. Chemical structure representation
Alexander Crum-Brown
(Edinburgh) 1865

12. All representation underlied by qualitative concepts – even in hard science

13. The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding
Leonardo da Vinci

14. Understanding requires the grasping of explanatory and other coherence-making relationships in a large and comprehensive body of information. Jonathan Kvanvig
Baylor College

15. Information poverty Truth Slow information Subject Relevance Digital library Document Task Information avoidance Digital literacy Knowledge lnformation literacy
Concepts where primarily qualitative is needed/useful

17. William martin’s one literacy to rule them all

18. I’ve been talking in generalisations – one point to address – (how) can we combine qualitative results?

20. Meta analysis

21. Qualitative evidence synthesis
Critical interpretive synthesis
Thematic synthesis
Meta-ethnography

22. UK Research Excellence Framework 2014
Research: a process of investigation leading to new insights, effectively shared Impact: an effect on, change or benefit
Implies understanding

23. Understanding is primarily qualitative
We need qualitative methods that will complement – postmodern mixed - quantitative for full benefit;

24. A humble reverence for everything we shall never measure
Václav Havel